Positioning & Branding
Denise Klarquist — 23 January 2008
As a marketer and a wine drinker, and a member of a company whose founder first developed the concept of "sensation transference," I was very interested in the recent study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology on how price affects wine drinking pleasure.
The study, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and already widely commented on, showed that among a small sample of male graduate students who occasionally drink wine, the more the wine cost, the better it tasted.
I certainly don't question the validity of the study - Louis Cheskin proved similar concepts in work he did decades ago, and many marketers understand that how you package and position a product (especially a commodity, which arguably some wine has become) has a much greater influence on purchase than the characteristics of the product itself.
I think one key thing is missing from this study though. Baba Shiv, associate professor of marketing who co-authored the paper titled "Marketing Actions Can Modulate Neural Representations of Experienced Pleasantness," speculates that the results of the study would probably be replicated even among wine connoisseurs. On this point, I have to disagree.
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Lee Shupp — 28 October 2007
The New York Times business section ran an interesting article in the Sunday paper today, entitled "If It's Retail, Is It Still Rock?" The article describes the steps that many musicians and bands are taking to increase revenue in an era of declining CD sales. It includes a very fun visual overview of various musical marketing ploys, ranging from the Kiss Kasket to a $150 bottle of Bon Jovi cabernet sauvignon. Some of these example are likely to make you laugh out loud.
Smart musicians have realized that they were building brands for a long time now. And all brands face the question of brand extensibility: how far can you extend your brand without losing the brand essence, the emotional center of the brand that makes it so appealing to its core audience?
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Denise Klarquist — 20 February 2007
I was sad when I heard of JetBlue's recent problems last week and their resulting challenges. I liked JetBlue, I liked the brand and what it stood for. And for the most part they've historically done a good job at following through on their promise of "bringing humanity back to air travel." And while I've done my time cooling my heels in JetBlue terminals waiting for delayed flights, that was a compromise I didn't mind making. After all, I was one of those privileged passengers taking advantage of free internet, my own in-flight TV, cool blue chips, and saving money!
But in the last year, the bloom was beginning to fade for me. The terminals were looking a tad shabby, the ticket agents seemed slightly stressed, and free internet wasn't such a unique experience anymore. And the fact that I had to shop for my lunch no matter what airline I flew meant I could buy my own blue chips or just about any other gourmet snack I desired. I didn't want JetBlue to become just another commodity airline, but the signs were there.
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Lee Shupp — 2 October 2006
I've watched two episodes of a show called "Survivorman" this past week, and I'm hooked. It's a show with a pretty unusual premise: the host, Les Stroud, is dropped in the middle of the wilderness with no food, shelter, or equipment, and he has 7 days to make his way back to civilization, using his survival skills to stay alive. Les is given only the clothes on his back, a few primitive tools, and the film gear that he needs to film his adventure singlehandedly.
As someone who spends lots of time outdoors, I really like the show, because it is expanding my knowledge of how to survive in adverse circumstances. As a futurist I find the show really interesting for several reasons:
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Steve Diller — 16 December 2005
When you write a book, you pay a little more attention to what other people are writing. You also pay attention to the way their books are being promoted.
We just received notice of a new book on "cult" brands that claiimed it was "the most original book on the subject ever written." That's a pretty questionable claim, of course. And even if it's true, you have to wonder about the originality of a book that's promoted using old-style, hype-oriented language to get and keep one's attention. But what's actually happening here?
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Leigh Marriner — 12 September 2005
There is an interesting shift afoot in the PC industry. Google wants to bring consumers into its ecosystem as soon as they open their PC, and completely bypass the Windows desktop ecosystem. In this model, the PC and Windows are just a conduit to the web, necessary only to manage the hardware and peripherals, and Google is akin to an internet operating system. Google is following an integrated model offering many services in one place (not unlike what Microsoft did with Office on the PC) so a home PC user can do most of what they want to do from the Google platform. Google uses each of its services to promote its other services – search, mail, blog, social networking, photo management, shopping, TV and movies, etc.
Handling photos is a good example. Consumers are confused over what software to use to save, edit, organize and print their photos. Google offers Picasa for free and positions it as the place to start when downloading digital photos. Then consumers can use Hello to photo-share and chat, or Blogger, or attach a photo to an email. Google may be able to monetize this consumer traffic by passing consumers on to printing sites for a share of revenue, plus they get advertising revenue on their site based on number of eyeballs.
This scenario could end with consumer’s primary emotional attachment and brand identification on the PC being with Google. Will we see a $200 Google PC that accesse the web, supports email and IM, manages photos, schedules and online shopping and integrates with your mobile phone?
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Davis Masten — 30 August 2005
On the radio yesterday I heard a Target ad for Boots. Not the kind of boots you wear, but rather the Boots that is a major retailer of drugs, health and beauty in the UK.
Target presented Boots as "the largest health and beauty brand in the UK," now available at Target. Ironically, Boots is more like Rite Aid or Walgreen’s than Clinque or Aveeda. But Target is shrewdly using the panache of Boots' British heritage to turn this private label into a major international brand. This is one more evolution in retailers' continued drive to redefine private label branding. With Boots, Target shows once again how they are leading this transformation.
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Darrel Rhea — 2 August 2005
Because our work was profiled in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink,” it generates a lot of questions for me on a weekly basis. It makes sense to comment on how “thin slicing” connects to the reality of shoppers making buy decisions on packaged goods. (For tips on how to deal with the retail experience overload, see my previous blog, “Mastering the Grocery Shopping Experience.”) People base their buying decisions on a strong feeling they get which isn’t necessarily rational but usually justified on some levels. The feeling that drives their decision is intuition, and what Gladwell calls “thin slicing” – but it’s not always right, just as any subjective opinion isn’t always right.
Why do we thin slice in the store? People do it out of self defense, simply because there’s so much stimuli in any retail environment that it virtually impedes shoppers from operating rationally. After all, most stores carry between 25,000 and 40,000 separate products, each with multiple packages. If you attempted to consciously “see” even a fraction of those, you would experience mental overload! --your brain would slow to a crawl and you would vulnerable to predators (like those old ladies with shopping carts that might run you over). It’s an evolutionary coping mechanism.
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Denise Klarquist — 17 June 2005
Yesterday McDonald's Corp. announced it will begin selling skateboards and bikes bearing the fast-food company's brand in a new effort to get kids to burn off burgers and fries with exercise.
Their efforts to extend their menu into healthy alternatives is certainly a move in the right direction, however I'm not convinced this newest brand extension will fly. In our recent study on brand extendibility, consumers gave McDonald's very little room in general to extend beyond their current space.
McDonald's and fun...OK, I'll buy it. McDonald's and community service... they set the original standard with Ronald McDonald house. But McDonald's for healthy living and lower body fat via skateboards? At least they aren't sponsoring a tie-in with the Lords of Dogtown. ;-)
Leah Hunter — 9 June 2005
Just because a brand can stretch into a particular product line doesn’t mean it should.
This lesson splattered all over me last weekend when I was testing my brand new Black & Decker hand mixer. The mixer, a present from my mother in law, seemed like a good idea on paper. Black & Decker makes great tools. A mixer is an indispensable tool for baking. The combination made sense. That is, until…
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Davis Masten — 8 June 2005
Yesterday we released our latest Global Market Bias study. It has been great collaborating with Paul Strasser at MSI-ITM and Clement Mok of CMCD. I would not have guessed that LG is one of the world’s most extendible brands. I like to think I don’t have a US point of view, but once again, data is forcing me to break through the limits of my perspective.
We included a variety of provocations in the report. These provocations were based on what the 12,000+ consumers told us (not what the manufacturers themselves may or may not have any intention in doing.) There is fun stuff like Sony automobiles, McDonald’s hotels, LG food products and Kraft kitchen appliances.
Over the next few days I will share with you three provocations that did not make it into the report. These provocations are not even based in the data, but, rather are inspired by the data and the collaboration. Clement Mok made these provocations take form. I love working with great designers.
Are these in Starbucks future?
These are fictitious illustrations of possible scenarios. They are not in any way TRUE representation of the company’s products or intentions.
Christopher Ireland — 18 May 2005
One of the benefits of living with a 12 year old girl is that I get a daily dose of pop music, whether I want it or not. Without this frequent exposure, I might forget that musicians have been creating meaningful experiences for their "consumers" for thousands of years. The top performers are masterful marketers.
If I was looking for a VP, Marketing or a senior creative director (and money was no object), I'd hire Gwen Stefani. Based on her top-rated video Hollaback Girl, this is a woman who knows how to turn a highly segmented audience into a cohesive whole. In a 2 minute message with very few words, she manages to be relevant to street gangs, athletes, band members, Japanese women, cheerleaders and potential pageant queens from the South.
Here's a few more I'd hire..
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— 7 May 2005
I read the following quote on May 5th (Cinco de Mayo) and I dismissed it thinking it may have been a statement made after one too many margaritas.
I don't know. I'm an actress, a brand, a businesswoman. I'm all kinds of stuff. -Paris Hilton
Quote from CBS news.
Now that I think more about it... (Paris Hilton does not evoke deep thoughts frequently.)
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— 5 May 2005
Actually… They are really saying no to Kmart.
Nike just did it. Nike announced that effective October 25 it will pull its product from Sears stores.
See Reuters article
Why would a brand limit the number of retailers carrying its products?! Isn’t it better to have more, not less, retail partners? The possible explanation lies in three words: Brand Equity Protection. Sears, given its recent acquisition by Kmart, may pose a risk to Nike’s brand image of exclusivity.
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— 20 January 2005
Today, in many organizations around the world, branding is treated as a cosmetic exercise only, and regarded merely as a new name, logo, stationary and possibly a new advertising campaign. But, to associate your “brand” with such superficial cosmetics is like saying that people are really only the sum of their name, face and sometimes their clothing
But branding is a thoughtful discipline that strongly belongs to the long-term strategy of an organization; brand strategy is, or should be, business strategy, and vice versa.
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— 12 January 2005
Re-reading Fredrick Reichheld’s “The One Number You Need to Grow” recently, I was struck by the importance of the Internet in increasing the ability of consumers to advocate or pan their brand experiences. The author hypothesizes that Promoters will talk up their excellent experience, Passively Satisfieds will remain silent, and Detractors will share their complaints. Today, through the Internet and, more specifically, blogs and message boards, individuals have an unprecedented ability to share their brand joys and pains with fellow consumers around the world.
And Detractors are sharing a lot of pain.
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— 7 January 2005
When I’m thirsty... I Wanna....Odwalla. When I’m with friends….I wanna ....Odwalla. When I’m buying my sandwich at the deli at the checkout….I wanna Odwalla. So this got me to thinking - why do I always wanna ......Odwalla?
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Denise Klarquist — 10 December 2004
I was reading something today that lamented the famous taglines that had been retired this year, namely those of GE and Xerox.
I remember when Xerox first launched its new brand identity and tagline "The Document Company." At the time I remember thinking it so risky and innovative. The pixeled X - would their customers even get it?! I admired Xerox for stepping out and emerging as a force in the new digital frontier. Well, how things change.
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Christopher Ireland — 15 November 2004
As I've blogged in the past, PVRs like Tivo and Replay have made TV an enjoyable past time again. Now when insomnia hits, I don't have to endure a re-run of Gilligan's Island and can watch this week's episode of Survivor instead. But more importantly, I can quickly skip past all the commercials of any show and focus my attention on the content.
When we had Replay, we used the Skip button and never saw any ads. With Tivo and other set-top options, you have to fast forward, so some of the ad is visible. After doing this for about 100 hours, I have definite opinions on which advertisers know they are living in a Tivo-world....
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— 10 November 2004
What is brand experience?
I attended a marketing function recently where this topic became the subject of discussion. There was a heated debate on marketing tactics, share of voice, marketing messages and brand strategies.
One gentleman spoke quietly and suggested that perhaps it wasn’t only about the messaging tactics but about the delivery of those tactics at every consumer touch point. He also suggested that the issue of brand experience was about the simple delivery of doing what you do really well.
This thought was provoking to a mostly advertising based audience but the elegance of his message was well taken.
Know who you are, do what you do well, understand your consumer and deliver against their needs simply. If you fulfill the most basic elements of the brand promise you will pave the way to solid relationships and brand growth. The depth of these relationships will extend permissions into new arenas paving the way for further leadership and innovation.
Darrel Rhea — 30 October 2004
This week I spent a few hours with a highly successful CEO discussing his brand identity questions and concerns. “What do the most successful brand initiatives have in common?” he asked. I shared an observation with him based on many years of having similar conversations and being involved in successful (and not so successful) branding programs.
There are a lot of reasons to embark on a major corporate branding program, but from the point of view of a CEO, most of them are simply not compelling. For many years I have watched marketers and design managers struggle to get large scale identity programs funded and supported by senior-most management. Even though there are clear breakdowns caused by the existing identity systems and designers believe they are presenting a clear, rational justification for investment…their attempts are rebuffed more often than accepted.
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Christopher Ireland — 26 October 2004
What have you learned from Dolce and Gabbana lately? If your first response to that question was “who?”, then you might want to stop now. On the other hand, if you’re intrigued to learn why Cheskin pays attention to haute couture designers, read on to hear what these boys have to say about modern consumers.
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Denise Klarquist — 7 October 2004
"Pop Up" shops, those temporary retail stores that last a season at best, have been around for a while. Think mall Christmas store that suddenly appears around Halloween and vanishes by New Years. But brands of all kinds are now really running with this idea, and at least from the buzz they're getting, it's working.
Last night I went to the opening of Method's new pop up store in Union Square. It was a mob scene. I'm sure the free wine and cheese had something to do with that, but people were buying stuff too... and a lot of it. The products are great, but you have to wonder what kind of world we live in when you see people standing at the register with a shopping basket brimming with designer cleaning products - we're talking dish soap and laundry detergent. OK, I have to admit that I walked home with an armful of product too (I was told Karim Rashid hand soap makes a great gift).
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— 6 October 2004
My colleague Gary Feldman wrote a provocative piece about product placement or pimping – the fine line between pandering and relevance of brand name products in movies, tv shows and the like. The difference between product placement as a gratuitously featured product shot vs. a meaningful extension of the brand and consumer experience has to do with authenticity. Leveraging that authenticity and positioning successfully is informed by thoughtful, strategic research.
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Gary Feldman — 23 September 2004
While the advertising community debates whether or not personal video recorders like TiVo mark the final death blow for the 30-second television spot, many are quick to suggest other forms of branding that are more "integrated" into the actual content.
Neither "product placement" in TV and movies nor client-sponsored original programming is a new phenomenon; in fact "soap operas" are known as such because they were originally produced by the advertisers such as P&G (the maker of Tide). Still, with the increased attention this type of marketing is getting, I think it's important for advertisers to not forget the consumer's experience as the viewer.
A show I watched last night provides a good example of both "good" and "bad."
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— 21 September 2004
What are the merits and risks to consumers when speech recognition technology is adopted too soon? What impact if any does cultural accent have? Are the motivations of voice recognition technology on behalf of serving consumers or managing the cost containment for a company or brand? Here is a personal point of view on how it can and should accomplish both.
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— 29 August 2004
Get a gaggle of women together on a weeknight to gossip over www.Hangarone.com cocktails and what do you get? A completely rationale explanation of how the principles of good relationships and dating apply to brands and their relationships to consumers. Curious? Read on for more…
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— 15 August 2004
A few weeks ago Microsoft announced the introduction of its new mouse designed by famous designer Philippe Starck. The newness of such partnership, the design itself, and Starck’s sexy brand drew considerable attention from the media. However, there’s something more important behind this news that goes beyond Starck or Microsoft and that went unnoticed; an experiment about the next grounds for competitive advantage in the personal technology industry: vanity and fashion.
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— 10 August 2004
I had read that Land Rover intended to drop the model name Discovery in favor of LR3 in the North American market, but did not believe it until I visited my local Land Rover retailer this weekend and picked-up a brochure. How could an automobile manufacturer engage in such senseless destruction of brand equity and positive association?
Proponents of the name change believe that using alphanumeric model names is “modern” and “sophisticated” and offer as evidence that other luxury automakers are doing it. They also opine that changing the name allows Land Rover to distance itself from a weak product and sketchy quality. But the name change is only for North America, so presumably the rest of the world is not interested in sophistication or quality.
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— 27 July 2004
A recent article in Business Week talked about the vanishing mass market. Mass brands are passe, targeted brands, products and services are de rigeure. Targeted messaging is more effective and cost efficient than mass advertising. It’s not one brand for the many it’s about the creation of the brand right for me that is tailored to my needs. A consumer’s ability to filter out marketing messages and advertising is driving advertisers to pay more attention to micro-markets and smaller groups of consumer needs. So the hype take-away is if you create products, services and messages based on smaller groups of consumer needs you can increase market share.
While this observation is not revelationary, it’s interesting to me to consider hypotheses about why consumers are exercising their need for personalization. Here are 3 speculations:
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— 9 July 2004
Ask your self this question, In which business are we really in? And stay far from the dark world of commodities...
I am astonished!!! I just witness how in three days a clan of marketers – brand managers, advertisers, researchers - drove a brand into the huge world of commodities, these people approach the brand building process as a conjunction of ideas- do not matter if the ideas were good or bad- and were clearly afraid to innovate and challenge the rules of their game.
If you are planning to maintain your brand as far as you can from the dark world of commodities, why not innovate by reconsider the category in which you compete and create your own rules.
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Jennifer Gray — 5 July 2004
I talked with someone today about who we are and what we do. After the call, I received an email that simply said:
"Thank you for giving me a call today and telling me more about your company. I have begun to take a closer look at your website, and I must say that I am rather excited by what your firm is up to. There is something alive, real, conscious, intelligent and sensitive going on; I can feel the heartbeat.
Felt good. Everyone should receive such reinforcement. I thought I'd share ours.
— 30 June 2004
It’s no news to say that Madonna -entertainer, movie diva, entrepreneur, book writer and mother of two kids- has reinvented herself again. She has done this for almost 20 years, becoming one of the most unique and noticeable brands of our times.
Today after discovering her passion for the Jewish Kabbalah she wants to be called Esther.
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Jennifer Gray — 15 June 2004
I read a great article today in Smithsonian magazine about StoryCorps, a national project modeled after a WPA project in the 30s. StoryCorps has set up a soundproof recording booth in Grand Central Station to inspire people to record each other's stories in sound. What a great, great idea.
I love the idea because it totally fits my approach to hiring. What do I look for when hiring people at Cheskin? Two things:
- the talent to listen wisely and inspire people to tell their story
- the knack of telling a compelling story -- using words, pictures, numbers
This is our foundation. You may be a branding expert, a strategic marketer or a design strategist (all stuff we look for), but without the storytelling and story-listening talent, these other skills are diluted and commonplace.
So, what kind of story tellers are we looking for right now? Visit our jobs page and see a full listing. Better yet, if story-telling is a talent and you're a strategic thinker with qualitative or quantitative research background, tell me your story.
Email me: jgray@cheskin.com. Call me: 415.348.0780x202.
— 14 June 2004
I am sitting outside a Starbucks, eating a Chipotle taco and drinking an Orangina, surrounded by Asian people that are visiting a Chinese supermarket that just open its doors in the middle of the Silicon Valley, thinking to write about how brands need to understand the synergies between the different ethnic markets that conform the US marketplace.
But suddenly I realize that I am witnessing a great moment in time and history – one that repeats itself every second of every year at every big city in the world–. I am a part of a Global world formed by Intercultural people. A world where you can eat tacos and drink a French soft drink watching a 50 something African American with his Asian wife ride in a German car, listening music in his iPod - the same music device that his son has-
But, if all this is true, how brands and marketers are going to reach and segment consumers in this new bizarre world were our “traditional” ways of doing things might not apply any more, what is going to happen with our segmentation models based on sex, ages, ethnicity, languages or levels of acculturation?.
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Christopher Ireland — 11 June 2004
The world needs a new marketing book like it needs another war for democracy—unless that book is written by John Zagula and Rich Tong. I met John in the mid-90’s when he was a one man “force of nature” associated with Microsoft Office. John is very smart, very fun, louder than most, and an all around fine human being. Add to this that he and Rich had ringside seats to the launch and development of some of the most powerful brands in the world, and you’ll begin to see why I willing to shamelessly hype their upcoming book.
Take a visit to their blog, Marketing Playbook, and you’ll get the details. They’ve used a sports metaphor to explain marketing strategy. That might not be compelling enough, but the type of sports they use help (when have you ever heard marketing tactics compared to drag racing?) Most importantly for my taste, they stay focused on a few simple rules. They explain their perspective in easily understood language. They don’t degenerate into a Microsoft “tell all.” And, it is all very well written. Either they’re working with a writer or one of them actually attended those college English classes…
The blog entries on the book are outline only, but the related discussions are enjoyable. I’m looking forward to their Fall publication.
Christopher Ireland — 27 May 2004
I always love talking to Carolina about acculuration and its many facets. Her recent blog captures some of the reasons why. The range, reasons and implications of acculuration is a very active debate at Cheskin, not just for US Hispanics, but for people of all cultures.
Although I rarely use myself as an example, I think I'm a reasonably good case in point here. My maternal grandmother is an Italian immigrant. My maternal grandfather was a Swiss immigrant. My paternal grandmother was of mostly Dutch and English ancestry, while my paternal grandfather could best be described as Celtic. My parents (bless them) did not choose sides; rather, they selectively embraced the parts of each culture they valued. As a result, I have a Northern Italian food palette, an Irish sense of socializing, a Swiss appreciation of logic, and a Celtic reverence of nature. But am I acculurated? And if so, to which culture?
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Jennifer Gray — 24 May 2004
One doesn't expect to get marketing advice at church. Right? I'm going through some sort of spiritual renaissance. Maybe it was Easter or yet another birthday or something different altogether, but I started going to mass recently. Okay, it's Newman Hall in Berkeley. For those familiar with the Paulists, at least it's intellectually interesting even if you question the wisdom of my newfound curiosity...
Anyway, back to marketing.
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Denise Klarquist — 11 May 2004
I just spent the last half hour writing on my experience visiting Disneyland for the first time in over 20 years. In one errant keystroke I accidentally deleted my entire blog. I'm trying again. More briefly this time...
I went to Disneyland for the first time in over 20 years with four kids (3, 5, 7, 11 - my sister's, not mine ;-). I wanted to have fun and see it through their eyes. I also wanted to pay attention to what was different and see if the Disney brand experience was what I hoped it could be.
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— 22 April 2004
About once a month a few of us at the office get together during lunch for what has become known as a SWAP meeting. We share thoughts, stories and sometimes play Pictionary. It’s a great way to relieve stress and learn interesting tidbits about the people we work with.
One afternoon our conversation turned, as all conversations eventually do, to the topic of The Lord of the Rings. Our discussion about differences between the book and the movie evolved into a discussion about the characters in the movie which made up the Fellowship of the Ring. The interesting thing to note was the difference in the levels of awareness of these characters by various people. We were struck by the similarities in how people remember these movie characters and how people remember certain brands.
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Jennifer Gray — 21 April 2004
Reading through LiAnne Yu's recent blog got me thinking about Betty Crocker. In seventh grade, I came across a deal -- by collecting and sending in Betty Crocker coupons, somebody could get a much needed kidney dialysis machine. I don't remember the details, but man, I was converted. I started a campaign and the Betty Crocker coupons flooded in.
My mom was a Duncan Hines gal, but that didn't matter. We became a Betty Crocker family. Scalloped potatoes (back then they only had one kind...), cake mix and anything else that we didn't use or need, I convinced my mom to buy. Somebody was gettin' a kidney dialysis machine and that's all I needed to know.
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Denise Klarquist — 20 April 2004
Following on my last post, I gave a presentation last night to the SF chapter of the National Charity League. Thirty mothers of teenage daughters listened as I explained how consumers and media are changing, and how marketers and advertisers are responding.
It was different talking to an audience of media consumers, rather than marketers. This was most apparent in the questions they asked throughout. It's easy to explain to a client why they should care about things that are important in their customers lives. It's very hard to explain to a mom why a company would ignore what's important (or in their opinion, ethical) just to promote a brand.
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Jenny Daley — 15 April 2004
Burger King takes their tagline “Have it your way” one step further with the new subservient chicken website as a part of the launch for the new BK Tendercrisp sandwich. Playing off some of the more adult themes of the internet, they’ve provided a scantily-clad chicken that will do whatever you like by typing in simple commands. Yes, the chicken will lay an egg, smile, have a good belly laugh, fall down, do jumping jacks, vomit, and my favorite, die. Do make sure to ask for a “chicken sandwich” as well… I won’t spoil the surprise.
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Lisa Leckie — 24 March 2004
Last night I purchased an iBook. Otherwise known to diehards as a turbocharged 800MHz PowerPC G4 with 256MB of RAM and a 30GB hardrive with an Airport Extreme card. I pointed out to a friend that it was their "bottom of the line" model, and he corrected me, saying Apple has "no bottom of the line."
I made it into the new Apple store in San Francisco in the nick of time before closing, having called earlier in the day to see if the shipment I was waiting for had arrived. The gentleman helping me purchase my iBook was hearing impaired (I like your values, Apple), and even above the "new-store" frenzy the process was seamless.
I signed on the dotted line and made my way out of the store to the front of the shiny, white spectacle where I awaited my friend. I stood there, bobbing up and down, side to side, not wanting to make a spectacle of my new purchase, but, well, yes, wanting to make a spectacle of my new purchase. The scene at the main store door after closing was the equivalent of a packed club after midnight. People who hadn't been so fortunate to have arrived before the bell tolled were trying to nudge their heads past the security guard and get a glimpse of the interior, if only to *smell* the interior.
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Christopher Ireland — 22 March 2004
Note to conference promoters: growing a conference is a lot like growing a brand. As an example, Chris Anderson is doing a good job of growing TED, a conference that could have peaked in the 90's. He's doing it by staying in communication with his audience, carefully selecting presenters and encouraging, well, forms of adoration.
How else can you describe this lovely blog tribute? Chris' email explained:
This has been a major labor of love over the past month by longtime TEDster Tom Wujec. He was always famous for taking awesome notes at TED. I challenged him this year to get them up on the web as a kind of visual blog of the conference. What he has produced is simply stunning. I've never seen anything like it, on-line or off.
It's not quite as good as being there, but it's close.
Leigh Marriner — 22 March 2004
This weekend I had one of those technology experiences that I want to tell everybody about. Right now I feel the same way about Starbucks as I felt about my teddy bear when I was 6. How could I live without it? Starbucks has just bought more of my consumer goodwill than any company whose products I’ve used all year.
Knowing I can wirelessly connect in any small city enriches my life so much. Instead of grumbling about being separated from my family for yet another day, I could meet a hard deadline and still watch my daughter’s team win the division volleyball championship. I’m so grateful to Starbucks, that even though I know offering wireless high speed internet access was a marketing tool to bring in business and enhance the brand, I feel as if they have just made a selfless contribution to the world. What a marketing coup!
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Christopher Ireland — 9 March 2004
I spent most of last week in work sessions, thinking thru the best ways to get feedback from consumers on product positioning. To some, this may sound like a new, improved version of Hell, but I actually enjoyed it. It's a tough topic for many reasons. Positioning is abstract and intangible, yet to be effective, it has to translate into very real, concrete images, sounds, sensations and experiences.
One of the biggest hurdles is designing the stimuli. Most marketers can not trust a simple set of words or visuals to accurately portray their product or service. They tend to add copious detail to the exhibits, explaining (and too often "selling") people on the features of their product, rather than using the stimuli to elicit conversation and learning about the products end benefits. Think of it this way, what helps you decide whether you should go to a movie--a few carefully chosen clips that catch your attention and suggest the movies "for you," or an explanation of the plot and the track record of the performers?
— 10 October 2003
I have been thinking about the role brand played in the recent landslide election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the office of governor of the formally-great state of California. All the political pundits could talk about in the post election haze was the role of voter anger in ousting Gray Davis from office. This reductive focus on the mechanics of representative democracy misses a far larger point: Brand.
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Steve Diller — 2 September 2003
I had the privilege to be the keynote speaker at the ASTECH Conference in Vail, CO last week. ASTECH is a yearly get-together of no-nonsense newspaper executives concerned about the nuts and bolts of profitability. They're very smart people, being asked to do the impossible.
As in much of post-bubble American business, these execs are being told to obtain measurable results from any particular action they take. So, for instance, if a new advertising campaign is undertaken, the agency has to be able to show what the impact was on the paper's sales. "Put out X ads, obtain Y dollars more than you put in" is the idea.
No one can seriously argue with the goals here- to waste less money and to obtain a return on investment. On the other hand, there's a fundamental challenge when one attempts to measure the value of something removed from its context.
When an ad is placed, its impact can't be understood purely in terms of "dollars in, dollars out," because the ad doesn't operate in isolation. It's like asking what part of a car's speed is determined by its gas tank. Clearly, the tank contributes in a manner that's determined in part by its quality. But which part of the car's speed is produced by the tank alone?
Because agencies can't easily demonstrate ROI in isolation, increasing numbers of newspaper companies are dropping advertising in favor of direct marketing. There's a certain irony here, since papers are simultaneously dependent for their existence on advertising, but that's another story.
Will branding be next? Design? Ultimately, the core question revolves around whether companies in fact reap rewards from communicating meaningful characteristics about their products to consumers, if they can't be precisely measured. It would be a far greater irony if the news media became the first industry to conclude that communicating doesn't pay.
Christopher Ireland — 14 April 2003
I finished William Gibson's latest novel, Pattern Recognition, this week. I enjoyed it, but it probably won't satisfy a pure SciFi enthusiast because much of the context is current. Nearly everything he describes either is happening now or easily could. What made it fascinating to me was the main character, Cayce, and her sensitivity to inauthentic branding. Her riff on Tommy Hilfiger is worth the cost of the book by itself, but she doesn't stop there. She comments astutely on brands from Michelin to Prada, with a startlingly candid and realistic perspective that I wish I heard more in real life.
Christopher Ireland — 28 February 2003
I've been home sick all week, so I've gotten a full dose of war coverage. I don't usually watch violent movies, so I'm less prepared than most to view scenes of widespread destruction while sitting on my couch. Maybe that's why I was so startled by the branding. Every channel, from the local stations to CNN, packaged and promoted their war content as though it were a product. I realize this is not new--branding of media content has been around for decades--but what surprised me is how inappropriate the branding was. Nearly all the shows used titles, colors and animations that would do well on the shelves of Walmart, but were stark and superficial on TV. MSNBC's "Operation Iraqi Freedom" banners could easily grace a box of Rice-a-Roni. NBC's branding suggests they offer the luxury version of the war, while CNN's branding can only be described as "GI Joe meets MasterCard." On second thought, maybe that is appropriate.
Darrel Rhea — 0 December 0000
This week I spent a few hours with a highly successful CEO discussing his brand identity questions and concerns. “What do the most successful brand initiatives have in common?” he asked. I shared an observation with him based on many years of having similar conversations and being involved in successful (and not so successful) branding programs.
There are a lot of reasons to embark on a major corporate branding program, but from the point of view of a CEO, most of them are simply not compelling. For many years I have watched marketers and design managers struggle to get large scale identity programs funded and supported by senior-most management. Even though there are clear breakdowns caused by the existing identity systems and designers believe they are presenting a clear, rational justification for investment…their attempts are rebuffed more often than accepted.
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